"But no luck?" Hasso said.
"Well, some luck," she said. "I found you, didn't I? If you're not a gift from the goddess, I don't know what you are."
"I am a man," Hasso said.
She kissed him. "I should hope you are, sweetheart. But you're a gift from the goddess, too." He wasn't sure he liked that. He wanted to count for himself, not for any… theological reasons. By the way she said it, though, he didn't get a vote.
King Bottero's mounted lancers and archers were pretty good. Hasso enjoyed watching them practice on the meadows outside of Drammen. The lancers tore bales of straw to shreds. The archers pincushioned targets. He wondered how he would handle the Schmeisser from horseback. He could ride, but he was no cavalryman.
"Lancers tear hole, then archers and foot soldiers go through?" he asked Lugo, who was also watching the soldiers drill. Panzers opened the way for infantry in his world. He figured knights would do the job here.
But the Lenello didn't understand what he was talking about. "Lancers fight on the line," he said. "Archers on the wings, to harry the enemy. Infantry in the rear, to try to protect if things go wrong."
Haven't they ever heard of the Schwerpunkt? Hasso wondered. The French had scattered their panzers all along the line. They'd paid for it, too, when German armored divisions punched through them. Hasso thought the same thing could work here, too. Why wouldn't it?
He tried to explain, using pebbles and twigs to show what he meant. Lugo looked at what he was doing, looked at him, and shook his head. "This is how we've always fought," he said. "I don't see any reason to change."
That pissed Hasso off. "You not want to win? You not want to beat Bucovin? You not want to beat other Lenello kingdoms? Why not?"
"This is how we've always fought," Lugo repeated. "It works fine."
For ten pfennigs, Hasso would have blown his brains out, assuming he had any. To Lugo, Hasso was a no-account foreigner to be tolerated as the goddess' bed-warmer but not taken seriously. Maybe letting the Lenelli think the goddess sent him wasn't such a bad idea after all. "We see what the king thinks," he said.
"If his Majesty wants to let you waste his time, that's his business." The marshal looked down his nose at Hasso. Since he was a short Lenello, he had to tilt his head back to do it, which didn't stop him.
"I hope he listens. Why not? You not win with what you do now. Maybe you win with a different thing, a new thing," Hasso said.
"And maybe we lose, too." By the way Lugo said it, that blew up a mine under the idea right there.
"Maybe," Hasso said, and the Lenello gaped in amazement that he would admit the possibility. He added, "How are you worse off to lose new way, not old way?"
Lugo didn't answer him. Hasso chose to believe that was because he couldn't answer him. The marshal took himself off, leaving the twigs and pebbles behind like untranslated hieroglyphics. Hasso wanted to kick him in the ass to speed him in the air, but feared giving him a brain concussion if he did.
What would the lancers think of being used as a breakthrough group? Only one way to find out, he thought, and walked over toward them. Their leader was a captain named Nornat. Captain, here, more or less equaled lieutenant colonel. The Lenelli had soldiers and sergeants and lieutenants — who were kids getting their feet wet — and captains and marshals, and that was about it. Who ranked whom depended far more on prestige than on a table of organization. The system caused more friction than Hasso liked, but he had more urgent things to worry about.
Where he fit himself was an interesting question. He was a captain of sorts, but only of sorts. Velona's favor helped. Surviving against Orosei — who, like a lot of very senior noncoms, had more clout than most captains — helped more. Whatever he was, he wasn't just someone who'd fallen off the turnip wagon.
Nornat led another charge. After his line of lancers shredded some more bales of straw, he guided his dappled gray up to Hasso. Mail jingled on his shoulders. Sweat ran down his face from under his conical helm. The bar nasal on the helmet didn't protect his face as well as the German would have liked. "What do you think, foreigner?" Nornat asked. By the pride in his voice, Hasso had better not think anything bad.
"Strong. Tough," Hasso said. Nornat's grin showed a couple of missing front teeth. A scar twisted his upper lip. No, a bar nasal didn't cover everything. We shredded Polish lancers, went through Hasso's mind. You wouldn't have lasted any longer. But that didn't matter here. Hasso cast his line: "Want to be more tougher?"
Nornat snapped like a trout. "How?"
"I show you," Hasso said.
When Nornat saw that he meant it literally, he swung down from his mount. The animal lowered its head and started cropping grass. Nornat crouched by Hasso. The Lenello smelled of sweat and leather and iron and horse — all familiar military scents. Hasso made lines of pebbles and twigs. Then he made a column and aimed it at a line. "You charge, and — " He stopped, waiting to see whether Nornat would get it.
And Nornat did. His eyes lit up. "We charge, and we smash right through, and we tear the guts out of whatever's in our way!" He straightened up in a single smooth motion, which impressed the hell out of Hasso — that mailshirt wasn't light. "Carsoli! Sanfrat! Come over here! You've got to take a look at this!" he yelled.
Carsoli was a big man. Sanfrat was bigger, so big that only a brewery-wagon horse could haul him around. Hasso didn't like feeling like a dink among the Lenelli, but he didn't know what the devil he could do about it, either.
Nornat explained his idea at least as well as he could have himself — probably better, because Nornat was a working cavalry officer with a working cavalry officer's appreciation of problems. "What do you think, boys?" he asked when he finished.
"I don't know," Carsoli said; by his tone, he didn't like it but didn't want to stick his neck out, either.
"Stinking Grenye won't be looking for it — that's for sure," Sanfrat said. "Ought to win us a battle or two just from surprise." He might be big — hell, he was enormous — but he wasn't slow or stodgy.
"What did Marshal Lugo have to say? You were talking about it with him, weren't you?" Nornat was quick on the uptake, too.
Hasso wished he could lie, but knew he'd get found out if he tried. "He does not like it. He says the old way to fight is good enough."
Sanfrat snorted. "I'm surprised he ever lost his cherry. He would've said playing with himself was good enough."
Nornat laughed. So did Hasso. He'd never known any soldiers who didn't have pungent opinions about their superiors. Even the Ivans joked about their commissars after they got captured. Carsoli bared his teeth in a sort of a smile, but that was all. Hasso feared the marshal would hear about the gibe in nothing flat.
"How do we" — Hasso gestured — "get around the marshal?"
"Just talk to the king," Nornat answered. "He'll listen to you, or I think he will. I'll talk to him, too, by the goddess. And you're friends with Orosei, right?"
"Mm — maybe." Hasso didn't know if he would go that far. He and the master-at-arms had a strong mutual respect, the kind two tough men who knew each could maim the other tended to acquire. Whether that equaled friendship wasn't so obvious.
"Well, try him," the cavalry captain said. "He likes your throws. I was watching when the two of you tangled. I lost some money, because I thought he'd pound you into the ground. But he's game for new things, so chances are he'd go for this column fighting. And I don't care what his rank is — he has Bottero's ear."
Carsoli looked about ready to burst, like a man who needed to run for the jakes. Hasso caught Sanfrat's eye, then flicked his gaze back to the dubious officer. Sanfrat got it without anything more than that. He didn't even nod. He just smiled a little, crookedly. Something would keep Carsoli from blabbing to Lugo right away. Something immense and muscular and blond, most likely.